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How it all came together

Three weeks later, multiple hours of brainstorming, even more hours putting it all together and a lot of sweat and tears. It is safe to say that we have presented a vey presentable piece of work.

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This is, to give you an idea of how our brainstorming sessions sound like. This recording is a compilation of many different ideas we had in our last session before the exhibition. It might sound confusing because we edited the recording, in order to just give you an idea of how the different thoughts are being thrown around. 

Recording made by the entire group. 

Trimmed and edited by Malyn Graefin zu Solms Wildenfels 

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Why the Tree of Life ...

We chose the tree of life in contrast to the bowl of vices. The bowl being the representation of how one is constantly surrounded, constantly indulging in different vices, without necessarily knowing it and without them necessarily just being bad. We added some vices in the bowl, vices that can even destroy lives. Therefor we displayed the tree of life right next to it, as the representation of how it all started, the symbol of renewal and hope. The beginning of an innocent life, not knowing what the world has to offer… or rather ‘throwing’ at you, without having a real choice to escape? We decided to display the tree of life through a shadow theatre because a Shadow Theatre is commonly used for children’s plays. Which, again, represents the innocence and the playfulness. We have tried to create a very thin line between enjoyment, indulgence and addiction in any form possible. Representing vices as not only bad and dangerous but also as something one automatically indulge’s in without actually realising how much it may consume one’s life.

Written by Malyn Graefin Zu Solms Wildenfels

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One of our many group meetings... 

Our assignment is based around the idea of vices and how society interprets human difference in the form of the individual perception of vices. We have discussed the manner in which a vice can serve a ‘bitter-sweet’ aspect since it is socially constructed and how some vices are more frowned upon than others. Our assignment is all about how we want to indulge into the idea of different vices, how it brings awareness as well as how it shows critic and acceptance from society. Therefore, we have decided to create a three media project, one that includes material culture, pop culture in the form of music as well as photography. Our project includes an interactive performance in which some members will actively participate in the exhibition, as well as public engagement which will allow the viewers to engage with our material culture, being able to dig deep into different vices (within a candy-filled bowl), whilst listening to music regarding addictions, and simultaneously viewing different movies on Netflix. We will also provide an interactive approach into the process we took to create our project, by displaying our weeks’ progress via a blog post which the public will be able to look through. All this will be taking place while we project an image of the tree of life in the background to show each individuals position in their own vices. 

Our exhibition will be quite busy- in the form of ordered chaos to present a sense of the overwhelming feeling one has when they lose control to their own individual vices.

Written by Gabrielle White and Clair Quari. 

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Many Many Hours later ...

We then decided to go bigger... 

we biuld our very own Shadow Theatre Box 

Created and Build by Malyn Graefin Zu Solms Wildenfels & Georgia Kellow 

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Trying out different mediums out to represent the tree of life :) 

Shadow Theatre 

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Some Sketching and planning on how the final piece should turn out. 

PS: the Tree of Life will no longer be projected... we found a better way to represent the Tree of Life :) 

Sketched bu Georgia Kellow 

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Night life BuzzzzzThe addiction to feel alive... we would do anything for the buzz.  

Brainstorming such is rather exciting and one quickly notices how broad this field could go. We discussed: the fear of not wanting to be alone, depression, make up (beauty), drugs (what are they even in todays society??????), prescription drugs (wellllll as long as we keep smiling no one says a thing, or ???), Booze (lets make sure it never runs out, is it not what people say?), Technology ( I can see you), Pills (we can live forever) … these are the themes that came up.  We thought of the silver lining and most of all the Bitter Sweetness of it all. Some of these themes have been introduced to us as “addictive”- a term that is loaded with negativity- , and some are addictive however socially accepted. But bottom line they are all our very own Vices no matter if, socially accepted or not.

Brainstroming done by the whole group, written by Georgia Kellow 

Our whole Group added pictures :) 

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Ideas - Human Difference...

We (our group) have been talking about and discussing the development of human difference and the idea of knowledge and power being the influencer of human development, determining factors of human growth and how humans perceive one another. When we thought about human difference we discussed how different humans have been depicted through race, gender, linguistics all through the dictator of knowledge. But now we thought if one speaks of human difference and the distorted image (created by humans through out history) of the “ideal” human we should look at our individual understanding of human “difference” and what the “correct” human would look like. We quickly noticed that we all had similar ideas, all clinging to an idea that has been indoctrinated into us from a young age, via media, friends, family and community. All in the name of having a “healthy society”. After discussing how we have been influenced differently but somehow surprisingly similar we started to debate who is the dictator to our “correctness” our “beauty” our understanding of rite and wrong.  And this is how we came to the word “Vices”. Emphasising the social “other” not necessarily having to be based on a physical, cultural or geographical difference that Anthropology and society has already emphasised. But the vices can determine the differences within humans. Vices in a current day and age and culture determine if you are or are not in it. Example if you don’t have a smart phone you are considered “other”. 

Brainstormed/ Ideas from group, written by Georgia Kellow.  

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We started to fill the bowl with all our vices. We discussed in class how we wanted to create something that is interactive, that wont judge and that wont determine the rights and wrongs of ones vices. We thought away to not judge is to add our very own vices and vices that we are aware off. We are hopping that people will be engaging and for example place there hands into the bowl of vices or interact with our Blog.  

The fun begins 

Created by our whole Group :) 

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The Tree of life... 

Thinking of ways to present the Tree of Life. 

It needs to be colourful, exciting and different because we all hope we will have a life like that. 

created by Georgia Kellow 

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Can you guess what we are making ?? we were not sure at first either with all the sprinkes, jumping around... but it became clear very fast... 

created by Georgia Kellow 

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Exploring different mediums and different forms to present our project. 

Having a fascination with sprinkles - the understanding of them. and them being a big part of our project we decided to play around and see what one could all do with the #ohsocolourful  sprinkles. 

*recommendation: Watch it with sound :) 

done by Georgia Kellow 

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Something's Got A Hold On Me...

“Once an Addict…”, this is the latest title of a brand-new hit song based on the dark deep modern world filled with money, drugs, sex and violence. These are but to name a few of the deep pits which rock our society, but these are the ones we talk about. No one talks about the obsession with losing weight or the obsessive social media quest to get the likes. The way in which teenage girls idolise beauty queens for faking the way they look with makeup and young boys whose eyes become TV obsessed all based on our “Non-Harmful Addictions. The everyday vices which have slowly grown to be part of our lives and taken us over.  Everyday becomes a pattern and we can’t break free. But then again who are we to judge what one person does as less than ourselves when we are just a wolf in sheep’s clothing imitating that we know what society truly accepts… 

Written by Daniel De Jesus